Louise O'Reilly (Dublin Fingal, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the Minister. I think it would paint a full picture. People do not go to the authority on a whim. It is something they do when they feel they have no other option. Very often, they have raised the issues at workplace level but they have not had any traction on it. My concern is that the concentration on Covid, while completely understandable, may have allowed other breaches. I am not going to put words in the Minister's mouth but I assume that he shares those concerns. It needs to be followed up. It is not good enough to say that when they are there they will have a look at everything because there could be a complete disparity between the calls that were made and the inspections that took place. A closer look at those figures to see exactly how many were related to Covid and were then broadened out would tell us the extent to which those other issues are being dealt with. Then there are still the remaining issues that could not be addressed through a workplace inspection. Some may not have been appropriate to a workplace inspection, which I understand, but those figures are fairly significant. The hope would be that as Covid recedes, touch wood, that they will get back to the normal regime of responding to those complaints as they are made and carrying out inspections as they are required.

On page 32 there is a breakdown of funding for programme expenditure areas highlighting the moneys both current and capital going to the three different programmes. Programme A on jobs and enterprise development, receives more than €561 million, programme B on innovation and commercialisation receives more than €275 million and programme C on regulation receives more than €105 million. It is somewhat the Cinderella or poor relation of that group. It would seem there is plenty of funding to go to business and development, all of which is important. I accept that. I am trying to understand why there was no appetite within the Department to allocate additional moneys to programme C, which is to help the HSA, WRC, ODCE, CCPC and other agencies that are trying to deliver on their mandates, especially after the good work we saw done by the HSA and WRC throughout the pandemic in keeping workers safe at work.